LAHORE, Dec 13: The Labour Party Pakistan staged a demonstration outside the Lahore Press Club on Thursday to protest against the failure of the government to check ‘blackmarketing’ of flour.

The workers displayed banners and placards demanding steps for controlling shortage of atta and raised slogans against the government and flour millers.

Speaking on the occasion, women wing secretary Nazli Javed and party leaders Yousaf Baloch, Mahmood Butt, Afzaal Goraya and Maqsud Mujahid said flour mills mafia in the government had created the shortage deliberately to facilitate blackmarketing.

They said President Musharraf justified the blackmarketing by saying that its prices were lower than other countries ignoring the fact that wages in other countries were higher than Pakistan.

PLF: The Pakistan Labour Federation also condemned the government for its failure to ensure availability of atta in a meeting held with Attiya Saleem in the chair.

Addressing the meeting, federation secretary-general Haji Muhammad Saeed said the PML-Q was making tall claims about sweeping polls on the basis of its performance but had forced the people to starve by creating shortage of atta which was their basic food requirement. —Reporter